[FM09] Benfica: Growing the stars of world football

FM2009 9.3 using 9.3 database and no edits.

It's just come to the end of the 2023/24 season and Benfica have spent prudently over the years, bringing in big names and winning the CL no fewer than 8 times in the last 15 years and the league title every year.

Jose Coelho has been appointed the clubs new chairman and is already throwing his weight around. His future for the club is that all of the clubs players are home-grown only, at most anyone under the age of 17 can be signed on a free and brought through the clubs academy.

The rules are in place immediately, and this summer he wants as many non-portugese players and staff sold in the transfer window and all of the current reserve and youth squads to be re-evaluated and their contracts sorted accordingly.

Ok so that's the background and what I'm going to be doing with my game. I think it'll be an interesting challenge. Luckily I already have 3 home-grown world-class players and 2 potential wonderkids. But there are definitely areas that are going to be really difficult. I have no midfield creativity, 1 goalscorer and no home-grown keeper that's got more than a 2star potential. Although this years youth intake hasn't happened yet.

I should be able to offload all of the non-portugese players pretty easily and for a decent price.

Will keep you all updated with the progress.

Subscribed here Captain. Should be good.

Sounds like an interesting challenge. And a great career.

Looking forward to this, should be a good challenge.

It's all went quiet here...........is there any truth in the rumours Benfica have wound up by the receivers?? Maybe the 1st team had to go back to school or finish their homework?

Captain, give us a sign you're with us............

Saturday 13th July 2024

Currently having the busiest off-season ever! Some points about what is happening below, will upload screenshots just before the start of the season with the final squad. FYI, there is £250mill in the bank.

Staff

All of my current staff are already tied down to expensive contracts that run out in two years time (2026) This means that unless another club makes an approach for them, I am unable to get rid of any of the non-portugese staff. I will try again next summer when they only have 1 year remaining on their contracts.

N.B. All of my scouts and physios are already Portugese, I just have a lot of ex-players as First Team Coaches that I need to replace.

New Contracts

I am imposing a strict wage structure at the club, if the players/staff don't like it, they can lump it. Most so far have accepted their new contracts, others are being a bit more stubborn about what they want and if they've turned it down twice, they've been transfer listed. It works like:

Main Squad

- Key Player - 4 Year Contract, £60,000 p/w, £5,000 Appearance Bonus. No other extras or signing on fee

- First Team Player - 4 Year Contract, £30,000 p/w, £2,500 Appearance Bonus. No other extras or signing on fee

- Rotation - 4 Year Contract, £5,000 p/w, £1,500 Appearance Bonus. No other extras or signing on fee

Reserves

- Backup - 4 Year Contract, £2,500 p/w, No other extras or signing on fee

U19s

- Promising Youth - 2 Year Contract, £1,000 p/w, No other extras or signing on fee

- Decent Youth - 2 Year Contract, £500 p/w, No other extras or signing on fee

Promising Youth players from the U19s and Rotation Players from the Main squad have been flagged as "Available for reserves"

Selling current foreign players

Easy, as I expected. Have made over £100mill so far with a few left to go. Most have gone to big teams such as Inter, Read Madrid, Barca, Chelsea. Sad to see some of them go as they've been loyal servants to the club, but luckily the fans haven't reacted badly to anything...yet.

Training Schedules

5 new Training Schedules have been created by me for the squad (youth training schedule is still on default and cranked up to to the top click of heavy) these schedules are: Goalies, Defenders, Defensive Midfielders, Attacking Midfielders, Forwards. These can be made available to you all at request.

Tactics

I am using a slightly tweaked version of the 4-1-4-1 tactic that I've been using for the last 4 seasons, bascially it's pretty defensive and focuses on build up play and magic happening from down the wings and the lone striker. Again, this can be made available on request.

Youth Intake

I've had the new youth intake for this season and two players standout as capable of being very good players, one is a DMC the other is a GK (yay!) there are also two strikers that seem to have poor stats but the assistant recommends for the future, so will see how they develop over time.

Some overviews of the players available to me and the assistant managers view on them:

Main Squad

Reserve Squad

Under 19s

Two weeks till the Portugese equivilent of the community shield.

Tuesday 5th November 2024

Only 3 of my starting 11 have had regular first team football in recent seasons and my average squad age is just 21 so when I scraped a 1-0 win in the Supertaca (community shield equivilent) and drew my first two games of the season 1-1 and 0-0 against two mid-table clubs I feared that it was going to be a long season...

But since then the team has picked up and stepped up, have won 10 in a row including first 3 CL group games (including a brilliant 1-0 home win over Chelsea where we played them off the park). Even the reserves (and a few U19s) played a great game in the Carlsberg Cup 3rd round match.

I'm still worred about where the goals are going to continue to come from, most of my wins so far have only been 1-0 or 2-0 although I've dominated the games, both through possession and through shots on goal the midfield lack a lot of quality to get goals if the strikers aren't on form. If my main goalscorer gets injured, I'm going to be really in trouble.

My general analysis of the squad gives me good confidence in my defence and my backup defence and a variety of capable defensive midfielders. I'm retraining my best winger to play more centrally just to increase the amount of creativity in the middle of the park, despite my team being more Bolton than Arsenal in terms of the type of player I have (lots of physical strength stats but not great passing stats), we've been playing a good passing game but with little end product, the ability to pick out that final pass is just lacking a bit at the moment.

So, at the moment we've won the Supertaca, are top of the league by 1 point, top of our Champions League group and joint top of our Carlsberg Cup group (ok, there's only one game gone!). Can't argue with that really.

Next update in 3 months (I've set myself an in-game recurring reminder!)

Good going in the Champs League - that should be you through

I had noticed in your squad pic that you were thin in the striking department, so fingers crossed there

Martins has turned out to be the player you hoped for. That's great

Good luck with the Champions League

I jinxed myself, first game after my update was the return game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and they kicked me all over the park and won 4-1

Nuno Lemos

This kid just came out of nowhere, honestly at the start of the season he didn't have an attribute over 15 and only had 8 first team starts now he's bossing the midfield.

Nuno Lemos

He's doing it Europe and for the national team too!

About to play CL final against Chelsea.

I've also come 2nd in the league, first time I haven't won it in my entire career. I'm gutted.

Lemos He's the perfect MC, especially with Martins already in there. These kids will win you something.

Lost 1-0 in a close final with Chelsea.

Not a bad season, I put out the u19s for the cup matches and didn't get very far in them so although I didn't win anything the progression made by the team was better than I was expecting. Board aren't too annoyed either which is good.

A bit annoyed with my new starting centreback, although he's progressed a lot his lack of jumping is really hindering his ratings and he's been beaten in the air from set pieces a bit too much.